Futures Lower After European Elections

U.S. stock index futures pared some losses but were still lower Monday following elections in France and Greece over the weekend, which showed voter frustration at austerity.

Though initial market blowback eased somewhat, major indexes were set to open more than 0.5 percent lower. Oil prices continued to tumble, with crude falling below $98 a barrel, while safe-haven demand for U.S. government debt rose, sending the benchmark 10-year yield to 1.86 percent.

Greek voters rejected ruling parties in elections on Sunday, a result that puts the country's future in the euro zone at risk. In France, Socialist candidate Francois Hollande won the second round of French presidential elections.

Greece's vote, combined with victory for Hollande over incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, will raise pressure on Europe's paymaster Germany to pursue a more growth-oriented approach to the crisis.

"All things considered, U.S. futures are rebounding nicely this morning," said Todd Schoenberger, managing principal at The BlackBay Group. "The primary explanation is because the nervous feelings Wall Street had following Friday's abysmal jobs report have been placed on the backburner, at least temporarily. Oddly enough, the Greece and France elections have helped downplay the severity of our own domestic economic concerns, and turned the focus to the horrific immediate outlook for the eurozone."

Wall Street ended its worst week this year with a sharp selloff on Fridayafter a slowdown in job creation in the world's top economy raised the biggest question mark yet about the prospects for U.S. growth.

Among earnings, Tyson Foods posted better-than-expected earnings, helped by price increases. In addition, the meat processor said it expects momentum to gain in the second half of the year.

Intel raised its quarterly dividend by 7.1 percent to $0.225 from $0.21.

General Motors and its China joint ventures sold 227,217 vehicles in the country in April, up 11.7 percent from a year earlier.

On the M&A front, Talbots rallied after the women's apparel retailer received a raised takeover bid of $215 million, or $3.05 a share, from private equity firm Sycamore Partners. Sycamore had previously offered to pay $3 a share in December.

Satellite imagery company DigitalGlobe rejected a $792 million takeover offer from rival GeoEye on Sunday saying the hostile bid substantially undervalued the company and its financial prospects.

The FCC has turned aside an application by LibertyMedia to take control of Sirius XM Radio , calling the application “defective” and “not warranted.” Liberty owns convertible preferred shares which could be turned into a 40 percent stake in the satellite radio operator.

And Comcast says NBCUniversal (the parent of CNBC.com) is exercising an option to sell most of its stake in the A&E cable channel, and that the deal would likely close in the second half of the year. The transaction would be worth about $2 billion.

It is a light day for economic data with only consumer credit due at 3 pm ET. Consumer credit is expected to register a rise of $8.5 billion for the month, compared with an increase of $8.7 billion for February.